


Devotions

by HeartlessMemo



Series: Night Fall [2]
Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood Drinking, Long overdue consummation, M/M, Middle Aged Memo, Minor Character Death, Parent Death, Pining, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sex, Worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:40:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26989150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartlessMemo/pseuds/HeartlessMemo
Summary: "It’s nightfall once again.Guillermo de la Cruz clutches a prayer card in his fist as he strides down the familiar path for the appointment he never misses. Not even tonight."---Following a death in the family, Guillermo goes to the park for his weekly "visit" with his ex-master. After two decades of distance and one-sided conversation, Nandor finally steps out of the shadows.
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless
Series: Night Fall [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1969768
Comments: 24
Kudos: 58





	Devotions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chiaroscure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiaroscure/gifts).



> Praise be and thanks eternal to [sinaesthete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinaesthete/pseuds/sinaesthete) for their thoughtful and galaxy-brained beta read of this little fic. And thanks also to [riskylatte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riskylatte/pseuds/riskylatte), who came up with the idea of interspersing Bible quotes with smut haha.
> 
> This fic is a response to the "Unholy" prompt for the What We Create in the October writing/art challenge! I've really fallen behind on the prompts, but that's because I took my time crafting this into something special for you.
> 
> Enjoy! As always comments and kudos give me life.

_ “You do not have to be good. _

_ You do not have to walk on your knees _

_ for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. _

_ You only have to let the soft animal of your body _

_ love what it loves.” -Mary Oliver, Wild Geese _

  
  


It’s nightfall once again.

Guillermo de la Cruz clutches a prayer card in his fist as he strides down the familiar path for the appointment he never misses. Not even tonight. 

Puddles dot the paved lane; he carefully avoids them, not wishing to ruin his patent leather shoes. He’s still dressed in the clothes he wore to the funeral: a dark suit and tie that make him look somehow older and younger at the same time. Like a little boy dressed up in his father’s clothes. His rigid soles scuff against the cement. The scraping sound grounds him in time and place, pulling him back from the vision of the gleaming white casket heaped with flowers. 

It’s early spring. The night is still chilly, but the park has begun to transform with the new season. Green shoots of grass peek out between moldy fallen leaves. Crocuses emerge in the flower beds that line the walk. The branches hanging overhead are heavy with verdant leaves whispering in the light breeze. Guillermo breathes in the damp, mildewy scent of new growth. Idly, he wonders if the funeral arrangements have started to wilt.

He rounds the well-known turn in the path, finally arriving at his forgotten little alcove with its dilapidated bench. The wooden slats of the seat give way to his weight as he sits; the wood is soft and worn. He recalls the hard, polished church pews and decides that this is a much more suitable place for worship. The laminated prayer card bites into the tender flesh of his palm and he releases it, taking his hands from his pockets and letting them rest on the well-loved bench.

Night sounds fill his ears: crickets murmuring in the grass, distant traffic rushing on the highway, gentle wind blowing through the trees. No matter how carefully he listens, holding his breath and keeping perfectly still, Guillermo will never hear his master’s approach until Nandor wishes it. Instead he begins his vigil, communing with the night, with this place, the setting for his devotions.

_ “Let us pray... _

_ I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever live and believe in me shall never die.” _

The priest’s words float back to him as if conjured by the night wind. Guillermo’s thoughts fix upon  _ his _ lord. The one he’s worshiped since he was nineteen-years-old. He calls up Nandor’s image with ease, despite the years that have passed since actually seeing the vampire. Dark eyes ringed in fire, bottomless pits into which Guillermo has been falling for the last thirty-seven years. A body as cold and lethal as a winter’s night. Fangs that reap bloody sacrifices from his victims. Guillermo closes his eyes and Nandor is there before him--skin warm in the candlelight, lips relaxed in a rare smile, holding out his hand and beckoning Guillermo to come forward. In his vision, Nandor places his palm on the crest of Guillermo’s head in a blessing. 

_ “Blessed are those who mourn, _

_ For they will be comforted.” _

The snap of a twig announces him. Guillermo eyes snap open; he stares straight ahead into the trees on the other side of the nook. He senses Nandor in the darkness behind him, a guardian or a devil. Both. But he doesn’t turn to look, though every fiber of his being is attuned to his master’s cold presence; though he longs to lunge at him and hold him and never let him leave this place. That is not their arrangement. 

Just this once, though, he wishes it could be different.

Guillermo tries to speak; tries to perform their ritual as usual. But the words stick in his throat, congealing into a heavy lump that suffocates him. A shaky breath passes through his parted lips and becomes a sob. Suddenly there are tears spilling down his cheeks. He reaches into his pocket, removes the prayer card with Silvia de la Cruz’s beautiful portrait on it, and sets it on the seat beside him. 

“She… died,” he explains in a shattered whisper, scrubbing furiously at his eyes with his fists. “Mi mam á . She’s gone, Nandor.” 

For an instant the rest of the words stick in his throat: Guillermo’s not supposed to address him directly. That’s not part of their ritual. Now Nandor will leave; now he’ll never come back. But the grief soon scours away the fear of breaking their rules and Guillermo collapses down to his elbows, hanging his head and sobbing out his heartache and pain. 

“It happened so s-suddenly, Nandor. I didn’t get to say good-bye or tell her I’m sorry.”

Guillermo crosses his arms over his chest, hugging and rocking himself in a pitiful attempt to self-soothe. His sinuses are blocked; his face is flushed; his mouth tastes like bile and communion wafers and his t í a’s buñuelos. He’s desperate to get a hold himself, to salvage this evening somehow, but every time he nearly has the crying controlled his mind supplies him with a new torture. The stricken look on his amá’s face when he left home to work for Nandor. The smell of eggs and fresh tortillas in the morning. The sound of her clambering in the kitchen, cursing under breath. Her smile. Her hugs. The way she took him in, without questions, when he came back home covered in blood and hysterical after a decade of being a bad son. 

Guillermo is so lost in memories, he almost misses the soft, hesitant touch on his shoulder. A hand--solid, strong, cold--closes around his shoulder and squeezes gently. Their first touch in twenty-six years. Guillermo’s breath stutters from his lungs. He freezes, terrified of breaking the fragile sanctity of this moment. He wavers on the threshold of action. Before he can summon the courage to cross it himself , Nandor does so for him. The vampire’s hands are suddenly clutching, pawing at his shoulders and chest; clawed fingers dig into the expensive fabric of his suit jacket and haul him over the bench. He’s dragged through the spider-riddled bush and then all at once he’s in his master’s embrace. As if it hasn’t been decades since the last and first time they held each other. As if a whole lifetime of experience--sadness, joy, yearning, hope--hasn’t slipped through Guillermo’s mortal fingers. 

Nandor wraps Guillermo up in his cape, the rich fabric and gold embroidery are clean and well-maintained. Guillermo finds himself wondering if Nandor has himself a new familiar, quickly deciding he doesn’t want to know. He buries his face in Nandor’s strong, broad chest and breathes him in. He smells like rose water, argan oil, and Tide To-Go Pens. He smells like warm candle wax and brassy, spilled blood. He smells like dust and animal pelts and frozen decay. He smells like home. 

_ “And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.” _

Guillermo never really left him, did he? Two decades spent building a human life, and with one simple embrace he is back on Staten Island, a nineteen-year-old boy knocking on a pagan god’s front door and offering himself in sacrifice.

“Nandor,” he cries. It’s a plea, a demand, a tribute, a prayer. Once the name falls from his lips he can’t stop. “Nandor. Nandor. Nandor. Nandor. Nandor. Nan--”

The vampire shushes him, bringing his hand up to cradle Guillermo’s head against his chest. That voice, rich and deep, rumbles through the fabric of the leather vest and into Guillermo’s tear-streaked cheek. “I am sorry, my Guillermo. Your mama… she was a good lady. She took care of you, kept you safe and happy after…” he trails off, clearing his throat uncomfortably. His arms tighten around Guillermo. “I am so very sorry.”

Guillermo clings to him, hands fisting in the cape, tugging at the material until Nandor is forced to stoop down. Guillermo closes his eyes, terrified of opening them to find that this is all a dream. Some kind of religious vision that will dissipate in a cloud of smoke if he breaks the spell. Nandor’s face is so close, he can feel the vampire’s cool breath on his cheeks. Guillermo presses forward, nuzzling his face into the whiskers of Nandor’s beard, gasping at the soft caress of long hair against his face.

“Is this real?” Guillermo whispers; his words are fragile, like moth’s wings fluttering through the air between them. “Master, is it really you?”

“Who else would it be, Guillermo?” Nandor chides in the same old amused tone that Guillermo has preserved in his heart like dried flower petals between the pages of the family bible. “Who else but me? It’s  _ always _ me, Guillermo.”

Thumbs wipe away the salty, stinging tears from Guillermo’s cheeks and the human huffs out a sound that’s a laugh, a sob and a cry of joy all at once.

“It’s always you, master,” he agrees and seconds later he feels the cool, miraculous brush of Nandor’s lips on his.

_ “Almighty God, cleanse my heart and my lips that I may worthily proclaim your Gospel.” _

Guillermo’s eyes fly open. Dark hair and pale, luminous skin fill his vision. Arms--powerful, undeniable--wrap around his soft little human form. He melts into Nandor, all the strength in his limbs bleeding away until the vampire’s strong grip is the only thing keeping him from falling to his knees. He’s resplendent, overjoyed to give himself up to the predatory angel before him. 

The grief--a hollow, aching hole in his chest--is still there. But with it is a new sensation, at once well-known and utterly novel: ecstasy, fulfillment, completion. To be united with Nandor finally, after decades of pining, feels unreal and yet meant to be. It’s everything he’s dreamed of and denied dreaming of for so long. 

Nandor’s lips slide against his own, cool to the touch yet soft and welcoming. Nothing like the hard and forbidding marble he’d always imagined. Nandor’s mouth is pliant and giving; it’s not unlike kissing a mortal man… as if Nandor isn’t the untouchable celestial being of his dark dreams, but flesh and--yes--blood. Guillermo flicks out his tongue and traces his master’s full, pouting lower lip. Nandor opens his mouth at once, granting him the entry he seeks. How can this be happening? After a lifetime of longing and supplication?

“Guillermo,” Nandor says his name like a plea, his lips brushing, the syllables melting into their kiss. “My Guillermo. You’re mine, still, aren’t you? Will you be mine?”

Guillermo mouth molds to his master’s. Nandor’s beard drags against the soft skin of his chin and cheeks. He pulls himself away long enough to answer. “Yes, Nandor. I’m still yours. If you’ll still be mine. Oh,  **_God_ ** , please tell me you’re mine, Nandor!”

_ God. _ For the first time in eight centuries, Nandor feels no pain at the holy word. Instead it dribbles from Guillermo’s lips, melting into their kiss and tasting like sweet honey.  _ Yes, _ he thinks, finally allowing his hands to roam down his human supplicant’s body.  _ Yes, I am your god, little mortal. And you are mine. _

The words spark in the night air, a spell that will keep them safe so long as they don’t stop touching. “I’m yours, Guillermo. Forever.”

They tumble to the earth, a tangle of grasping limbs, rolling hips and desperate, longing kisses. Nandor breaks their fall, landing in the dewy grass with a soft grunt and clutching Guillermo to his chest with reverent care. Guillermo is alight with sensation. Prayers fall from his lips, holy words that once would have sent his master hissing and flinching, but which now seem to feed him. 

“Nandor, my god!” He pulses his pelvis with every repetition of the name. “God, I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

_ Love _ . A word that should bring Nandor as much pain as the other and yet… Guillermo’s heartache, his abandon, his devotion have unlocked something inside of him. He lets himself free. His hands clench Guillermo’s backside and squeeze; he grinds their pelvises together in fervent desperation. Guillermo settles heavily on his chest, sinking his fingers into the vampire’s soft hair and raining kisses on his face. 

“You will give yourself to me, won’t you?” Nandor whispers, an edge of uncertainty in his voice. “Finally?”

The weight of ecstasy and sorrow on Guillermo’s soul leaves no room for the exasperation that he should rightfully feel at those words. As if Guillermo has not given himself to Nandor every day for his entire adult life. As if he wouldn’t have gladly killed to be in this position decades before. But here, in this holy place, in the communion of their bodies and souls, Guillermo doesn’t scoff. He presses a gentle, wet, lingering kiss to Nandor’s lips before answering. 

“You already have me, Master.”

  
  


“ _ Take this... and eat of it, for this is my Body, which will be given up for you.” _

They lay Nandor’s cape out on the grass like a blanket. It’s almost completely dark in the shadowy undergrowth, but Guillermo still blushes as he shrugs off his suit coat and begins unbuttoning his shirt, aware of the vampire’s heightened senses. The darkness presses up against Guillermo’s eyeballs; he strains to see merely the faintest outline of Nandor’s powerful frame. His face is a dark blur except for his eyes. Nandor’s predator eyes drink in every bit of ambient light and reflect it back at Guillermo. They glow. Hallowed, fiery rings in the night.

Guillermo is no longer a virgin. He feels a small, pitiful pang at the knowledge that he can’t give Nandor that part of himself. He’s slept with a few men over the years. But he’s never truly offered himself to any of them like he’s doing now. Guillermo takes off his shirt, his undershirt. He toes off his shoes and socks and undoes his belt. It’s cold and the cape is starting to absorb the dew and chill from the solid earth beneath, but he doesn’t shiver as he removes his pants and underwear. He lays on his back, nude, flushed, panting and achingly hard. He doesn’t feel the icy wind that raises goosebumps on his arms and hardens the pink tips of his nipples to little nubs. He is a sacrifice; an offering; a tribute. The cold can’t touch him now. Not with the fire of his lord’s eyes keeping him warm.

Nandor’s hands paint ribbons of freezing flame on his skin. They brush lightly, teasingly across his belly, his chest, his thighs. The vampire drapes himself over Guillermo and the human realizes that he’s also undressed. They both gasp as their rigid, leaking erections bump against each other. Guillermo bucks his hips in uncontrolled desire and he feels Nandor sink his fingers into the ample flesh of his thighs to hold him still. A huff of breathy amusement falls from the vampire’s lips. He grabs Guillermo up in another passionate kiss, nipping and licking his lips. A keening, vulnerable moan bubbles up from the vampire’s throat. He clutches Guillermo’s tender body against his cold,, cadaverous frame. Tears--frigid and laced with blood-- fall down his cheeks and mingle with Guillermo’s. 

“Guillermo!” Nandor gasps, pulling back. His hands trace patterns on the pulsing hot skin of Guillermo’s neck. The human waits and listens to his master’s labored breathing. A plea hangs in the air between them. “Will you give me this as well, Guillermo? Your blood?”

_ “With faith in your love and mercy I eat your Body and drink your Blood.” _

For the first time, Guillermo wonders if Nandor comes here every week with the intention of offering worship just as he does.

“Take it, Nandor,” he commands. His voice is strong, unwavering, loud in the solitude of their secluded grove. He reaches up blindly and takes Nandor’s face between his hands, guiding him down to the cradle of his neck until the vampire’s cool lips press against his skin. “Drink.”

Nandor whispers something against Guillermo’s neck before biting down. The words are an unintelligible susurrous. He recognizes them as Al Quolanudarese. And though he’s incapable of parsing them, they feel like secret magic words. Words that finally pulverize the last brick in the wall between them. Guillermo knows their meaning in his bones, in his heart, in his soul.

Nandor’s fangs pierce and bruise. His bite is brutal and honest. This is Nandor; no hiding, no subterfuge. He is violence and blood and frozen kisses. He is also the tender stroking of fingers along Guillermo’s tear-stained cheeks and the broken sob he makes an instant before the blood begins to flow. Guillermo’s eyes flutter shut and he fists his hands in the cape beneath him.  _ Take me, take me, take me _ , he begs.

Blood and body.

He buries his hands in Nandor’s hair, cupping the crown of his head as nonsense prayers fall from his lips. He invokes every sacred symbol he knows. Nandor’s mouth; his tongue; his hands; his cock. The bedroom under the stairs. The candlelit crypt. The parking lot at the immigration office. The blood-stained robe from Celeste’s orgy. The ancestry reports. Wooden stakes and crucifixes. The claw-foot bathtub. Nandor’s hair oils. His coffin. Bubble gum and mason jars and flashcards and feather dusters and boot polish and ice chips and a portrait made from glitter: two men, impossibly hopeful, naive and in love.

When Nandor finally retracts his fangs from Guillermo’s neck, he laps at the spilled blood, kissing the soft, torn skin with a grateful, remorseful, worshipful reverence. 

“My Guillermo,” he cries over and over again, rocking his hips subconsciously and panting as their cocks slide against one another. When he draws up on his elbows Guillermo can see his blood marring those perfectly cruel lips and staining his full beard. His voice is thick with tears. “Your blood, Guillermo. It’s…”

Guillermo nods, wiping Nandor’s cheeks even as his own tears fall into his hairline. “I know, Nandor. You’re mine now. Always.”

The vampire bows his head, pressing his lips to Guillermo’s soft chest directly over his rapidly beating heart. “Your blood is rushing, Guillermo. So eager to give me your life.”

Guillermo sighs, running his hands down the length of Nandor’s sides, squeezing his soft flanks and raising his hips to grind against him. 

“And what are you eager to give me, Nandor?”

Nandor brings his hand up to Guillermo’s neck and catches the blood that still flows there. He hovers over Guillermo, balancing on one  elbow as he moves his other hand between them and slides his wet, bloody fingers into the cleft of Guillermo’s backside. Guillermo feels the slick of his lifeblood against his sensitive skin as Nandor’s fingers probe and press into his entrance. A shiver wracks his frame at the utter indecency, the absolute sacrilege. 

“Fuck,” Guillermo hisses as the first finger breaches the tight ring of muscle and enters him. “God! Nandor, yes.”

Nandor whimpers in gratitude at his human’s praise. He speaks absently, in the grips of religious ecstasy, “Let me show you, Guillermo. Please, let me show you.”

Guillermo writhes and nods his head, arching his back as another finger joins the first. “Show me you love me, Nandor. Show me you fucking worship me.”

A strangled growl fills the little grove and Nandor picks up the pace of his thrusting fingers, subtly rocking his erection against the tender skin of Guillermo’s thigh as he goes. His breath mingles with Guillermo’s as he leans in and presses their lips together in a slow, aching kiss. He inserts a third finger, stretching Guillermo out and swallowing the man’s groan.

“Now, Nandor,” an echo of desperation and sorrow tinges his voice. Nandor scrambles to comply. He removes his fingers, kneeling between Guillermo’s spread legs and placing shaking hands on the insides of his generous thighs, steadying himself. 

Nandor doesn’t speak, but the sound of his breathing might as well be a love letter. He’s panting, there’s a hitch in his breath, a tremor in his fingers. Guillermo feels the tip of him against his hole and he nearly sobs with relief and joy and loss and guilt and exasperation. Why now? After all these years? Why on the night of his mother’s funeral when he is ragged and raw? Why couldn’t they have had this when Guillermo was still young and so pitifully in love with Nandor that he was willing to tarnish his soul for the vampire’s convenience? He thinks these things with regret, with melancholy longing and wistfulness; but never with anger. 

This is  _ his _ Nandor and Guillermo will take him and cherish him until he is buried in the ground. Nandor presses forward, entering him inch by inch. Stars burst in Guillermo’s eyes and amidst the furious physical sensations, a feverish thought flits through his head. When Guillermo is dead he wants to be buried in this very spot, in the soil beneath their naked bodies, on the site of their long-delayed consummation. The idea should repulse him, or sadden him, but instead it just feels right. He pictures Nandor visiting his grave every Sunday for the rest of the time and cants his hips, taking the vampire deeper as the blood trickles from his neck and his cock smears precum onto his belly. 

Their bodies move together in a rhythm that’s both familiar and wonderfully new. They cling, claw, grab and stroke. Nandor’s length fills Guillermo; the vampire’s fingers wrap around Guillermo’s rigid cock and pump him as he thrusts. The words that fall from their lips are a heady, nonsensical, sacred blend of Spanish, Al Quolanudarese and English. Love is only the beginning. This is yearning, devotion, allegiance, becoming, undoing, transforming. Nandor is god is Guillermo is Nandor. They are whole for the first time in their lives. 

The climax takes them both at the same time. Guillermo sobs, fat tears rolling down his cheeks as Nandor roars above him. Nandor spills his plentiful vampiric seed inside of him as Guillermo’s cum shoots out in hot ropes that paint his and Nandor’s bellies. He lets his softening cock fall from Guillermo’s body as he collapses down, pillowing his head on Guillermo’s chest and gasping for air that he doesn’t need. Guillermo cards his fingers through his hair and weeps. 

He’s crying for the boy he once was. The one who loved his amá and wanted to make her proud. The boy who fell in love with a demon. The boy who dreamed and hoped and prayed and was disappointed. He’s crying for Nandor, too, who has lived for centuries without ever allowing himself to acknowledge the soft animal of his own emotions. And he’s crying for his amá, whose heart he broke for a decade and who never, ever stopped believing in him even when he came home at the age of 30, jobless, soulless, and ruined.

Nandor nuzzles his cheek against Guillermo’s sparsely-haired chest, pressing kisses into his sweat-slick skin and tracing patterns over his stomach with long, elegant fingers. 

“I can hear your heartbeat, Guillermo,” he whispers. “Did you know I could always hear your heartbeat? It’s not usual. I mean, yes, of course vampires have super hearing, but we learn to tune all that out, you know? But never with you, my Guillermo. I listened to every beat of your little heart for eleven years. I was so afraid one day it would stop…”

In the soft, sacred dark Guillermo can finally ask the question, “Then why didn’t you ever turn me? You could’ve had me forever, immortal. Why, Nandor?”

Nandor sits up and his eyes glow as he looks down at Guillermo, a frown in his voice, “I didn’t want it to stop, Guillermo. I didn’t want to be the one to...make it stop.”

Guillermo shuts his eyes and they are quiet for a long, long time. He holds Nandor in his arms. The chill of the night air finally affects him and he shivers once. Nandor grabs the edge of the cape and pulls it over Guillermo to shield him. They lay beside each other, touching, breathing, listening. Guillermo traces the outline of Nandor’s lips, letting his finger dip inside his mouth and feeling the sharp edge of his fangs. Nandor allows it. Of course he does. He could not deny Guillermo anything. Not in this place. Not anywhere else, either. The knowledge settles in his veins, flows through him like Guillermo’s blood.

“Guillermo,” Nandor begins, drawing out the last syllable like he used to. “It is not too late…”

It’s a statement and a question. Guillermo holds his breath, waiting for the vampire to elaborate, but Nandor remains silent. A moment later he feels Nandor’s cold skin pressed to his lips. There’s warmth there, too, borrowed from his body. He tastes blood as Nandor presses his wrist firmly to Guillermo’s mouth.

“It’s not too late,” he repeats. 

  
  


_ “May this mingling of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, bring eternal life to us who receive it.” _

  
  
  



End file.
